Stride Night is a reintigration skills and recreation program providing a social and informal environment through which to facilitate Stride Circles, and of bringing the community to the inmates.  Regularly we invite outside agencies in to meet the women, facilitate programming and talk about skills, community programs and resources useful to reintegration.  Stride Night creates bridges to the community through individual volunteers and community organizations, who participate, engage and develop relationships with the women serving a sentence at GVI.  These volunteers and organizations then develop their own vision and potential of how they might contribute to a woman's positive reintegration.  These relationships, connections and experiences equip women leaving prison with options for creating a new life, reducing destructive patterns of behaviour and criminal activity.

The Stride Night program operates weekly, on Tuesday evenings.  Utilizing various social recreation and reintegration skill activities, Stride will integrate trained volunteers and relevant community resources with the women incarcerated at GVI.

Looking for a rewarding experience?  We are seeking caring community members who are interested in becoming part of our Stride Night program.  Please go to our "Training and Events" section to find out more about how to become a volunteer.

Program Goals

Stride Night:

• provides opportunity for women who are incarcerated to participate in positive, family friendly, affordable leisure activities that they can use to support their reintegration in to the community
• increased self-esteem, positive mood, and improved social skills among Stride Night         participants
• engages community involvement in the prison increasing the women's interaction with everyday community members and bridging with community services (e.g. the YM/YWCA, Early Years Centre, Self-Help Alliance)
• increases community awareness of women in prison and their issues of reintegration - this helps reduce the myths and fear leading to the ongoing stigmatization of the women in prison
• encourages the women to be more involved with the planning and promotion of activities

Stride Night was created to better facilitate our work with the women of GVI by creating a positive environment within a prison which will:

• improve awareness and access to the Stride program
• provide a non-threatening environment through which the women can meet and get to know potential volunteers for their Circle
• provide Stride Circle Volunteers with practical experience with the women and Grand Valley Institution as part of volunteer training
• engage trained volunteers who are waiting to be matched with a Circle.

For more information on becoming a Stride Night volunteer please refer to the "Volunteer" section of our website or the "Training and Events" tab of this program section.

We'd like to say thanks for the Fun on Tuesday

Tuesdays at GVI are so much fun

At 7:00 it's time to run

Get here early to beat the crowd

Enjoying the quiet before it gets loud

Once the noise starts to sound

So many smiles all around

The games, the music, the fun, the laughs

We enjoy it all, especially the crafts

We appreciate it all, everything you've shown

Coming to Stride sure beats staying at home

We enjoy your company; we don't want you to go

Please come back soon, we'll miss you so

Once again we'd like to say

Thanks for the Fun of Tuesday

                                                               Written by Angelina, a Stride Night Participant